Welcome to From The Upper Deck, my blog about RSL and soccer in general. I have a lot of passion for the beautiful game. I am just a fan that likes to sit in the upper deck and take it all in.

Monday, April 7, 2014

Crunching the Numbers- SKC

On Saturday night RSL held on to get a point on the road against Sporting KC. Last year the team learned how important even one extra point can be at the end of the season. Will we look back at the end of this season and think how vital this draw was?

I have been blogging for a little over a year now. As one that looks at and writes about stats, I hate 0-0 draws. It is much more difficult to dig in and find interesting pieces of information after a 0-0 draw. But I will do my best to find those stats of interest for you.

RSL is still sitting on 8 goals scored on the season. They are now scoring a goal every 56 minutes which is just slightly behind last year's record setting pace.

The team has only given up 4 goals or a goal every 112 minutes which is also second best in team history.

RSL only recorded 5 shots vs SKC with only 1 being on goal. Chris Schuler led the team with 2 shots.

RSL is averaging 10.6 shots attempts per match. The Galaxy leads the league averaging 18.3 shots attempts per match.

Luis Gil was only 7 for 15 on attempted passes. Luke Mulholland wasn't much better at 8 for 15. Ned Grabavoy led the team completing 85% of his pass attempts.

Since coming back from injury last season, Schuler has played 1040 minutes. In that time RSL has only given up 7 goals or a goal every 145 minutes.

This season RSL has only given up 1 goal in the 270 minutes that Schuler has played.

Joao Plata leads RSL in shot creations (shots + passes that lead to a shot). He is creating a shot every 12.1 minutes that he plays. Morales is second on the team creating a shot every 26.7 minutes.

Plata has created 32% of all shots that RSL has taken this season.

Schuler's defensive numbers continue to be extremely impressive. RSL has a record of 6-1-5 since Schuler has come back into the lineup after his injury last year. There is a huge difference for RSL's defensive numbers from when he is on the field compared to when he is off.

There were a couple of articles posted on the web this past week looking at specific players around the league and how many shots they create per match (the best one found here). I thought this was very interesting so I started to calculate this for all RSL players. Plata's numbers jumped off the chart. It is crazy to think that in the limited time he has played he has created so many shots for the team. I will be writing a full article in the near future with my findings for the whole team.

I was a little worried about how RSL was not attempting many shots so far this season. RSL is currently third from the bottom of the league in the amount of shots taken per game. But the conversion rate for RSL's shots are very high. Currently the team is scoring on 15% of the shots they have taken. That is second highest in the league. Here is the interesting thing. Dallas currently is leading the league in goals scored with 13. They also have the best scoring percentage at a whopping 28% of their shots leading to goals. What is crazy is that they are last in the league only averaging 9.2 shots per match.